Replies

“This is the statement I’m referring to. You claimed to speak for all of us.”

A few weeks ago, I stole this from another poster and modified it to suit myself:

“I can explain (some alleged contradiction) quite easily. I see it here on FR all the time. Somebody latches onto a simple misinterpretation of a statement because it gives that person the perfect venue to strut and preen in defense of his own ecclesiastical/political/moral existence. Thus has Satan snuck in to the discussion all unnoticed. The saints—I believe it was a hated Jesuit as a matter of fact—have taught us that in a dispute, the disputing parties have a duty to attach the most innocent and least malicious motives and explanations to the other’s statements. It is part of the virtue of charity. It is what anyone would want from you, and it is plain common sense.”

It is simply not reasonable to say that my statement was an attempt to “speak for all of us.”

“I am not trying to slander you.”

And how well you succeeded, without even trying.

“the fact is she finished, got her degree.”

A fresh, steaming pile of bear crap could get a degree from Harvard—or most other universities, these days. It just ain’t no major achievement, unless you’re in one of the hard sciences and come out competent in your field. The hardest part of college is keeping body and soul together, about which she had not to worry.

“So she’s not an affirmative action case, which crashes and burns at the higher levels.”

The “higher levels” of our government and, to a lesser extent, corporate America, are stuffed to the rafters with incompetent affirmative action cases, who are not allowed to crash and burn. Competent people are fired for “sexism” and “homophobia,” but affirmative action cases are not fired for incompetence. Similarly, universities will do what they have to do to ensure that affirmative action cases graduate, up to and including changing course content and grades.

“those fixes are not going to be implemented because the system has no stake in improving them.”

The only way to fix it is to get the leftard scum out of education, and keep them out. I advocate branding them on the cheek for easy identification.

“There’s no reason why it should have taken me 4 years of school to get the degree, and I honestly believed the courses that I took in high school to be of higher rigor.”

I wonder what year you graduated. I went to very strict primary schools (My high-school class had only one dropout, and even the jocks, greasers, and hoods scored highly enough on the entrance exams to get into a state university). My college courses, though (with the exception of touchy-feely crap taken for an easy A), were immensely more rigorous than any high-school class. (I’m thinking of algebra 1 and 2, geometry, foreign languages, English, biology, history, chemistry, and a few others that my antiquated synapses won’t cough up just now.) Even college psychology was on a much higher level than high school (still, as they say in Psychology departments, BS = Bull Scat, MS = More of the Same, and Ph.D = Piled Higher and Deeper).

“That combined with the expense made it clear to me that it was a waste of time.”

A person can waste his time in college, or he can learn useful things. Provided, of course, that there’s a slot after they get through admitting women and minorities with half his SAT score.

“Every course can be challenged.”

A good professor brings things to the classroom that you don’t get if you challenge. The professor who taught my molecular genetics class actually knew, and got phone calls from, Watson and Crick. We heard about some things even before they were published.

“Why don’t we spend 40 hours and learn the material in a week?”

I’ve had courses like that. Here’s the thing: the human brain doesn’t work like that. If you want something to stick in long-term memory, you need to read it once, hear it in the classroom, study for a test, put it away, then bring it out and study it again for finals. There are exceptions, of course, but that principle holds in almost all cases.

“You’re going to teach? Get a placement with a high school. Work with them for 2 years. After you finish the apprenticeship, you go on to being a teacher.”

Problem is, most education majors only end up there after failing at several, more difficult majors. It takes time for them to sift down to the filter at the bottom of the pool.

“Make the threshold, get in.”

As the case of Winston Churchill shows us, examinations are a hit-and-miss method of identifying intelligence and talent. They work most of the time, but relying solely on examinations would result in a huge waste of human capital. In addition, I oppose one-size-fits-all solutions as a matter of principle.

“Get rid of the Women’s study department.”

Oh, Hell yes, and all the rest of that nantoka-studies crapola, too.

Should also exclude any group or celebration that starts with a race. Black Supremacy, Hispanic Revanchism, all of it. That mess is balkanizing America.